September 22, 1790

1790 Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, a man who would have many professions, was born in Augusta, Georgia. He attended Yale and a law school in Connecticut before returning to Georgia where he began the practice of law in 1815. In 1817, he moved to Greensboro, where four years later he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. In 1822, Longstreet was named superior court judge, serving three years until he returned to Augusta to resume the practice of law. In the early 1830s, he began writing and penned his most famous work--Georgia Scenes, a humorous series which told of life in the late 1700s. Between 1834 and 1836, Longstreet published the Augusta State Rights’ Sentinental. Then, in 1838, he became a Methodist minister. The next year he became president of Emory College, a post he held for nine years. Next, he briefly was president of a Louisiana college before becoming president of the University of Mississippi (1849-56). In 1858, Longstreet became president of the University of South Carolina. During the Civil War, he served as chaplain of a Georgia militia unit. After the war, he returned to Oxford, Mississippi, where he died July 9, 1870.

September 22, 1863

1863 Atlanta received 163 Union prisoners captured two days earlier at the Battle of Chickamauga. These were the first Federal prisoners in the Civil War to be sent to Atlanta.

September 22, 1877

1877 President Rutherford B. Hayes arrived in Atlanta on a good-will trip in an attempt to mend North-South relations after Reconstruction. Hayes became the second sitting president to visit Atlanta (the first being Millard Fillmore, who came in 1854).

September 22, 1906

1906 On this Saturday night, a group of white Atlanta youths and men decided to go searching for blacks to beat up after hearing reports that blacks had attempted four assaults of white women at their homes. The group quickly turned into a mob, and soon all blacks were fair game. The Atlanta Race Riot would continue Sunday and Monday. Before it ended, official reports reflect 25 blacks and 1 white were killed and many more wounded--though the actual casualty list was probably much higher.

September 22, 1909

1909 Artist Lamar Dodd was born in Fairburn, Georgia. Dodd went on to become a major southern and Georgian artist at the University of Georgia, where he became director of the Art School, which after his death in 1996 was named for him.

September 22, 1918

1918 To conserve fuel for use in America’s participation in World War I, Atlanta’s city gasoline administrator prohibited driving on Sundays--except for emergency vehicles. There were no civil or criminal penalties, but police were to report the names of anyone breaking the order to the newspapers for public ridicule.

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September 22, 1932

1932 In a tragedy showing the extreme personal effects of the Great Depression, Atlanta iron worker J. Walter Meeks shot his wife and then turned the gun on himself. Meeks was despondent over his inability to find work, while his wife eked out a living for the family as a night waitress. She had just returned home from working all night and sent their ten-year old son off to school when the shootings occurred.

September 22, 1996

1996 An 8-2 victory over the Montreal Expos gave the Atlanta Braves their fifth consecutive division title -- the first National League team to accomplish this feat. In fact, only two other teams in the Major Leagues -- the New York Yankees and the Oakland A’s -- have won five division titles in a row. The win also meant that Braves manager Bobby Cox now joined Casey Stengel as the only two managers in Major League history to have singularly led a team to five consecutive division titles. The game was also significant to pitching ace John Smoltz, who won his 23rd game (tying an Atlanta record for season wins), struck out 10 (setting an Atlanta record for strikeouts in a season), and hit a 3-run home run. Smoltz’s impressive performance helped him subsequently win the Cy Young Award for the 1996 season.